They fell apart and moved back into the room. Amabel entered. She wore a
long white dressing-gown that, to her son's eyes, made her more than
ever look her sainted self; she had dressed hastily, and, on hearing the
crash below, she had wrapped a white scarf about her head and shoulders,
covering her unbound hair. So framed and narrowed her face was that of a
shrouded corpse: the same strange patience stamped it; her eyes, only,
seemed to live, and they, too, were patient and ready for any doom.
Quietly she had closed the door, and standing near it now she looked at
them; her eyes fell for a moment upon Sir Hugh; then they rested on
Augustine and did not leave him.
Sir Hugh spoke first. He laughed a little, adjusting his collar and tie.
"My dear,--you've saved my life. Augustine was going to batter my brains
out on the door, I fancy."
She did not look at him, but at Augustine.
"He's really dangerous, your son, you know. Please don't leave me alone
with him again," Sir Hugh smiled and pleaded; it was with almost his own
lightness, but his face still twitched with anger.
"What have you said to him?" Amabel asked.
Augustine's eyes were drawing her down into their torment.--Unfortunate
one.--That presage of her maternity echoed in her now. His stern young
face seemed to have been framed, destined from the first for this
foreseen misery.
Sir Hugh had pulled himself together. He looked at the mother and son.
And he understood her fear.
He went to her, leaned over her, a hand above her shoulder on the door.
He reassured and protected her; and, truly, in all their story, it had
never been with such sincerity and grace.
"Dearest, it's nothing. I've merely had to defend my rights. Will you
assure this young firebrand that my misdemeanours didn't force you to
leave me. That there were misdemeanours I don't deny; and of course you
are too good for the likes of me; but your coming away wasn't my fault,
was it.--That's what I've said.--And that saints forgive sinners,
sometimes.--That's all I want you to tell him."
Amabel still gazed into her son's eyes. It seemed to her, now that she
must shut herself out from it for ever, that for the first time in all
her life she saw his love.
It broke over her; it threatened and commanded her; it implored and
supplicated--ah the supplication beyond words or tears!--Selflessness
made it stern. It was for her it threatened; for her it prayed.
All these years the true treasure had been there beside her, while she
worshipped at the spurious shrine. Only her sorrow, her solicitude had
gone out to her son; the answering love that should have cherished and
encompassed him flowed towards its true goal only when it was too late.
He could not love her when he knew.
And he was to know. That had come to her clearly and unalterably while
she had leaned, half fallen, half kneeling, against her bed, dying, it
seemed to her, to all that she had known of life or hope.
But all was not death within her. In the long, the deadly stupor, her
power to love still lived. It had been thrown back from its deep channel
and, wave upon wave, it seemed heaped upon itself in some narrow abyss,
tormented and shuddering; and at last by its own strength, rather than
by thought or prayer of hers, it had forced an outlet.
It was then as if she found herself once more within the church.
Darkness, utter darkness was about her; but she was prostrated before
the unseen altar. She knew herself once more, and with herself she knew
her power to love.
Her life and all its illusions passed before her; by the truth that
irradiated the illusions, she judged them and herself and saw what must
be the atonement. All that she had believed to be the treasure of her
life had been taken from her; but there was one thing left to her that
she could give:--her truth to her son. When that price was paid, he
would be hers to love; he was no longer hers to live for. He should
found his life on no illusions, as she had founded hers. She must set
him free to turn away from her; but when he turned away it would not be
to leave her in the loneliness and the terror of heart that she had
known; it would be to leave her in the church where she could pray for
him.
She answered her husband after her long silence, looking at her son.
"It is true, Augustine," she said. "You have been mistaken. I did not
leave him for that."
Sir Hugh drew a breath of satisfaction. He glanced round at Augustine.
It was not a venomous glance, but, with its dart of steely intention, it
paid a debt of vengeance. "So,--we needn't say anything more about it,"
he said. "And--dearest--perhaps now you'll tell Augustine that he may go
and leave us together."
Amabel left her husband's side and went to her chair near the table. A
strange calmness breathed from her. She sat with folded hands and
downcast eyes.
"Augustine, come here," she said.
The young man came and stood before her.
"Give me your hand."
He gave it to her. She did not look at him but kept her eyes fixed on
the ground while she clasped it.
"Augustine," she said, "I want you to leave me with my husband. I must
talk with him. He is going away soon. Tomorrow--tomorrow morning early,
I will see you, here. I will have a great deal to say to you, my dear
son."
But Augustine, clutching her hand and trembling, looked down at her so
that she raised her eyes to his.
"I can't go, till you say something, now, Mother;"--his voice shook as
it had shaken on that day of their parting, his face was livid and
convulsed, as then;--"I will go away tonight--I don't know that I can
ever return--unless you tell me that you are not going to take him
back." He gazed down into his mother's eyes.
She did not answer him; she did not speak. But, as he looked into them,
he, too, for the first time, saw in them what she had seen in his.
They dwelt on him; they widened; they almost smiled; they deeply
promised him all--all--that he most longed for. She was his, her son's;
she was not her husband's. What he had feared had never threatened him
or her. This was a gift she had won the right to give. The depth of her
repudiation yesterday gave her her warrant.
And to Amabel, while they looked into each other's eyes, it was as if,
in the darkness, some arching loveliness of dawn vaguely shaped itself
above the altar.
"Kiss me, dear Augustine," she said. She held up her forehead, closing
her eyes, for the kiss that was her own.
Augustine was gone. And now, before her, was the ugly breaking. But must
it be so ugly? Opening her eyes, she looked at her husband as he stood
before the fire, his wondering eyes upon her. Must it be ugly? Why could
it not be quiet and even kind?
Strangely there had gathered in her, during the long hours, the garnered
strength of her life of discipline and submission. It had sustained her
through the shudder that glanced back at yesterday--at the corruption
that had come so near; it had given sanity to see with eyes of
compassion the forsaken woman who had come with her courageous,
revengeful story; it gave sanity now, as she looked over at her husband,
to see him also, with those eyes of compassionate understanding; he was
not blackened, to her vision, by the shadowing corruption, but, in his
way, pitiful, too; all the worth of life lost to him.
And it seemed swiftest, simplest, and kindest, as she looked over at
him, to say:--"You see--Lady Elliston came this afternoon, and told me
everything."
Sir Hugh kept his face remarkably unmoved. He continued to gaze at his
wife with an unabashed, unstartled steadiness. "I might have guessed
that," he said after a short silence. "Confound her."
Amabel made no reply.
"So I suppose," Sir Hugh went on, "you feel you can't forgive me."
She hesitated, not quite understanding. "You mean--for having married
me--when you loved her?"
"Well, yes; but more for not having, long ago, in all these years, found
out that you were the woman that any man with eyes to see, any man not
blinded and fatuous, ought to have been in love with from the
beginning."
Amabel flushed. Her vision was untroubled; but the shadow hovered. She
was ashamed for him.
"No"; she said, "I did not think of that. I don't know that I have
anything to forgive you. It is Lady Elliston, I think, who must try and
forgive you, if she can."
Sir Hugh was again silent for a moment; then he laughed. "You dear
innocent!--Well--I won't defend myself at her expense."
"Don't," said Amabel, looking now away from him.
Sir Hugh eyed her and seemed to weigh the meaning of her voice.
He crossed the room suddenly and leaned over her:--"Amabel darling,--what
must I do to atone? I'll be patient. Don't be cruel and punish me for too
long a time."
"Sit there--will you please." She pointed to the chair at the other side
of the table.
He hesitated, still leaning above her; then obeyed; folding his arms;
frowning.
"You don't understand," said Amabel. "I loved you for what you never
were. I do not love you now. And I would never have loved you as you
asked me to do yesterday."
He gazed at her, trying to read the difficult riddle of a woman's
perversity. "You were in love with me yesterday," he said at last.
She answered nothing.
"I'll make you love me again."
"No: never," she answered, looking quietly at him. "What is there in you
to love?"